Hieu:

Dear Donny,
I’ve read a lot of your reviews / comments on Vietnamese DVD / Albums but it has been a while without seeing your critics on Thuy Nga Paris by Night . How about this time with Paris by Night 107 which has just been released a couple days ago ?
Best,
Hieu V

My response:

Dear Hieu,
Thank you for reading. Unfortunately I no longer have the luxury of sparing a couple of hours watching Paris By Night, let alone writing a review for it. These days I only focus on albums that I feel worth mentioning or worth my time reviewing.
Best,
Donny

My use of social media has changed unconsciously over the year. In the beginning, I tried to connect all my networks together. My blog RSS feed would go to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. My tweets would feed into Facebook and LinkedIn.

These days, I separated out my networks. I use Twitter mainly for web-related topics and keeping up with the industry. Facebook is mostly to connect with friends and family. I am not using LinkedIn as much as I used to. I hardly use Pinterest and gave up on Google+.

I used Google Reader quite a bit to keep up with my favorite blogs, but now that Google shut it down I am going back to Feedly. I love Feedly interface design, but somehow the functionality always confuses me, especially the “today” tab.

Out of all the social media activities, blogging and reading blogs remain my favorite. I like the personal space when I blog and I like reading blogs in which the authors put more time and effort into writing them.

Jen Karin, one of my favorite clients, once again gave me a creative opportunity to do a fun project. Jen will be speaking at a conference and she wanted something to hand out to the audience. She likes the idea of giving a 4×4 card with her contact info on the front and her powerful strength message on the back. In a few hours, I came up with these designs in Illustrator. I really love a small project like this. It allows me to come up with something creative fast. For me, no project is too small. If you have something creative you need help with, do not hesitate to contact me.

My lovely wife wears many hats. In addition to taking care of me and my boys, she’s my only usability tester and browser checker. Every time I make some front-end updates to this site, I would call her up to ask how is my site looking on her IE8.

For the past few weeks, she said that the homepage banner doesn’t show up on IE8, which is intentional if I am using an SVG banner. A few days ago, she called me and said, “Is your site hacked? I keep getting the CAPTCHA box.” I then realized that I set the security on CloudFlare really high. As a result, if CloudFlare thinks you’re a spam, it will ask you to fill out CAPTCHA.

I went back into CloudFlare today and turned down the security setting down a bit. You still need to fill out CAPTCHA, but it won’t expire for a month. I apologize if it is causing you any inconvenience of accessing the site, but I rather be safe than sorry.

Just rolled out a few updates on Mason Law. Brought back the image slider one the homepage, added more links, tightened up the typography and jazzed up the footer a bit.

While the visual only gets some minor changes, the entire CSS structure is completely rewritten using Sass. I went through line by line of CSS and convert everything into SCSS. Managing CSS with Sass is much easier and much more pleasurable. The more I use Sass the more I appreciate its maintainability. I also reduced to fewer media queries and put more focus on the mobile version.

Dad: Were you being a good boy at school today?
Dao: Yes, I was a good boy. I didn’t hit anyone.
Dad: You’re not supposed to hit anyone.

Dao said to his mom: “Daddy pee pee standing up. Dao pee pee standing up. Can you pee pee standing up mommy?

Our lil Dan is starting to show his effection for others. Every morning I dropped him off at my sister-in-law’s house, he would give his cousin Khoi and hug and a kiss and sometimes a few slaps on the head as well. If I ask him for a kiss, he would do it as well. He’s also starting to copy his brother. He wants the same food Dao eats and the same toys Dao plays.

In the past couple of months, I have been thinking about redesigning the Mason Law web site. One of the things I would like to accomplish is to clean up all of the menu items. One of the approaches I wanted to explore is having one menu button that would launch the entire navigation system. As I started to look around, Disney is doing it. The problem is that the menu system is not implemented across all of Disney sites. The bigger issue, though, is that the launch nav disappeared with JavaScript turned off.

The new Teehan+Lax site also taking the same approach and having the same no JS issue. Even with the JavaScript turned on, I started to get annoyed rather quickly that I have to make that extra click every time I want to go to another section of the site.

Accessibility wise, the JavaScript dependency is not going to work for a higher educational web site. Design wise, it is not going to get pass my superior. I am actually reworking the homepage to include more links. It is getting way overwhelming. So now I am going to need to figure out a different solution.

Thank goodness for the spring break this week even though I still have to go to work. Things are calming down a bit. I am catching up with most of my school projects. The jazz board game for my seminar class is coming together nicely. I cam’t wait to play it in class. My group project for the Advanced Web Design class is still sketchy, but I have all the core requirements finished. I am in the development stage for the second project. I also whipped up 900-word essay for the class.

As for work, I am concentrating on realigning the Law homepage. We’re bringing back the carousel that is featured on almost every university web site. I was so glad we were done with in, but now it’s coming back.

On the freelance side, I launched two WordPress sites. Still working on a third one. Designed a simple business card for a client. In the process of working on a mockup for another client. Every time I say that I am not taking anymore client work, I get more requests and I hate to turn them down.

Boy, I really need a break. I am exhausted. Oh shit! Google is shutting down Reader. This is probably a good reason for me to stop checking the blogs’ updates.

Stephen Coles’s The Anatomy of Type:

Just like the human body, the Latin alphabet can take on a surprising range of shapes and proportions. These varieties can come from diverging historical paths, differences in language or culture, or simply the tool used to make the letters—whether it’s a pen, a chisel, or a compass.

This is an outstanding coffee book for type nerds.

Just rolled out PR Whiteboard blog for Matter Communications. I was brought in mainly for WordPress development. I was not responsible for any design aspect of the site. Nevertheless, the design is very nice.